Love Wyandotte Keeps Detroit Area Going Strong

Located just 10 miles south of Detroit, Wyandotte, Michigan, doesn’t have the powerful automotive corporations of the Motor City. Instead, it runs on a powerful team of small business owners dedicated to protecting the innovation and resiliency that makes the area so famous.

Love Wyandotte, or the Wyandotte Independent Business Alliance, is a group of local businesses, nonprofits and residents that works to educate and empower the community on the value of shopping local. In reality, Love Wyandotte achieves this mission by providing resources to its local business affiliates and giving back to the entire community.

Love Wyandotte strengthens local businesses by helping them compete with national chains. The alliance distributes to its members social media resources, including The Twitter Primer, a complete guide to using Twitter for small businesses prepared by Wyandotte’s own 3V Business Solutions, LLC. Love Wyandotte also hosts networking events, where attendees can meet business experts from in and beyond the community and learn new skills like online and mobile marketing. During the recent Detroit bankruptcy filing, Love Wyandotte encouraged local businesses to take advantage of the opportunity to be innovative and restore the area’s reputation.

By spreading key resources to small businesses, Love Wyandotte keeps the community strong financially. By bringing those small businesses together on annual projects, the group keeps Wyandotte strong physically. Throughout the year, Love Wyandotte hosts and promotes several charity events with health-related goals. For example, Dress Up Wine Down is an annual cocktail party and fashion show that benefits the Center for Rehabilitation, an outreach program of the Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital. The event raises several thousand dollars for the hospital and showcases the styles of local retailers.

In October, Love Wyandotte rolls out its Paint the Town Pink campaign to raise money for the hospital’s Yes Ma’am program, which provides mammograms for uninsured and low-income women. Paint the Town Pink is a month-long celebration of breast cancer awareness that includes a fun run and a Pink-a-Palooza party that celebrates breast cancer survivors and honors victims. In 2014, Love Wyandotte teamed up with local high school students to raise more than $7,000 throughout the month.

From promoting small businesses to promoting health within the community, Love Wyandotte keeps the Detroit area strong and resilient. Love Wyandotte is a local affiliate of the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA). For more information about AMIBA or to find a local affiliate near you, visit www.amiba.net.

Independent We Stand is dedicated to helping independent businesses across the country engage their communities and encouraging customers to buy local. If you’re a business owner, get buy local resources, tips and news by registering at www.independentwestand.org/membership/. Your business will also be included in our ‘locals only’ search engine and mobile app. If you’re a consumer, take the pledge to buy local and find local businesses in your community at www.independentwestand.org/take-a-stand/join-the-movement/.